August 20, 2010

Students who are systematically bullied often do much worse in school, report UCLA psychologists who surveyed 2300 middle school students and their teachers. "Students who are repeatedly bullied receive poorer grades and participate less in class discussions. Some students may get mislabeled as low achievers because they do not want to speak up in class for fear of getting bullied,” said Jaana Juvonen, lead author who recommends teacher training to learn how to address bullying. Victims often don’t want to attend school and, besides often having psychological problems from being bullied, may have headaches and other illnesses as well. Many victims don’t discuss bullying with their parents, found researchers, and, instead, are more likely to suffer in silence.

A father rescued his three-year-old daughter from the claws of a grumpy 28-year-old Asian black bear at a private zoo in western Germany, reports BBC. The girl had climbed the three-foot fence and landed in the enclosure where the bear hit her on the forehead. Both father and daughter were injured before the ordeal was over. However, the injuries weren't life-threatening. The father, a 34-year-old Dutch man, suffered an injured leg. The same bear had attacked a keeper at the zoo three years ago, injuring the man's arm. According to BBC, Asiatic black bears reside throughout Asia, from Pakistan to Japan. They're also called moon bears due to a crescent-shaped white patch found on their chests.

Experts estimate that more than 5 million men suffer from hair loss, lack of concentration, mood swings, decreased desire for sex, weight gain and fatigue, all due to age-related hormone changes referred to as menopause in women. "This disorder is not something that should be ignored," said Robert Brannigan, MD, urologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He believes that male menopause (male hypogonadism) is a highly prevalent disorder with 95 percent of cases left undiagnosed and untreated. The hormonal shifts in men occur more slowly than the shifts experienced by women. In men, testosterone levels drop about one percent every year starting in a male's late thirties. Male hypogonadism may be treated with hormone replacement therapy via gels, patches, injections or pellet implants.

Decitabine and gemcitabine, drugs that are currently approved for pre-cancer and cancer therapy, hold promise for fighting HIV, say researchers from the University of Minnesota. The drugs successfully eliminated HIV infection in mice by making the virus mutate itself to death. While decitabine and gemcitabine aren't yet approved for treating HIV, the safety profiles of the FDA-approved drugs are well known. Both drugs are believed to fight HIV without causing toxic side effects, and they could be effective at levels well below those used to treat cancer. The next move for researchers is modify the drugs to a form that can be absorbed into the human body when taken by mouth.

The kissing bug, found in the U.S. southwest, can cause dangerous allergic reactions, and it may bite your face at night, says MSNBC. The bugs, properly called triatomines, are attracted to the light inside houses. They come out at night, using scent and heat to find their human victims. These bugs with long feelers bit at least 669 people between 2000 and 2005, claim researchers at the University of Arizona’s “Kissing Bug Project.” Yet, the number of actual exposures may be even greater. A bite from a kissing bug may cause the victim to have trouble breathing and develop swollen-shut eyes, blistered skin and itchy welts. Some victims have even lost consciousness or had trouble walking after being bitten. In rare cases, the bug can cause Chagas disease, which is potentially deadly.

A study looking at six previous studies that investigated consumption of fruits and vegetable and the odds of developing type 2 diabetes found that those who ate one and a half extra servings of green leafy vegetables like spinach reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes by 14 percent. Eating more than that did not further decrease the risk. The six studies combined involved 220,000 people. There is a argument about foods that may be better at preventing type 2 diabetes but it is known that healthy nutrition and exercise prevent this disease that affects over 220 million people around the world and can lead to a number of problems if not properly managed. Researchers involved in this study think that antioxidants and magnesium in green leafy vegetables may play a role in prevention.